


snowmelt

by starlightwalking



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Depression, Developing Relationship, Forgiveness, M/M, Post-Canon, Redemption, Sharing a Bed, The Hunger | John Lives, how and why? idk just roll with it, the briefest of mavis and mookie cameos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:55:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25516126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlightwalking/pseuds/starlightwalking
Summary: John washes up on Merle's beach one day, and neither of them really know what to do about that.
Relationships: Merle Highchurch/The Hunger | John
Comments: 15
Kudos: 48
Collections: Rare Pairs Exchange 2020





	snowmelt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Panny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Panny/gifts).



> Dear panny: I've been wanting to write this fic for ages, so I was very excited to see this prompt in your letter! I hope I did them justice, and thank you for giving me the opportunity :)  
> Also, I love your description of John as the "personification of existential depression" so I borrowed that in the fic~

"Your suit's ruined," is the first thing Merle says to him, because he's never been the best at broaching difficult subjects, and, well, the suit _is_ ruined.

John doesn't look up. He's propped up in Merle's own bed, blankets wrapped around his otherwise-nude form. (Merle had to strip the salt-stiff suit off him, though he felt _weird_ that the first thing he did when seeing his...friend? in a real and physical form was to undress him.) He holds a mug of hot tea in his hands but doesn't drink. He stares into it instead, and Merle can't see his eyes but he imagines they're blank and empty.

"Really shouldn't go swimming fully clothed," Merle adds, letting out a nervous laugh.

No reaction. Merle sighs, feeling a headache coming on. He has no idea what to do, what to say— _why_ is John here? Why isn't he—dead, or trapped in the Hunger plane? Has Lucretia's spell failed, are they still doomed, how is John _here_ —

"Drowned," whispers John, still not looking up at him. "Or starved. Died. I'm dead. I'm _dead_ , I can't _be_ here..."

Merle moves his old bones over to sit beside him on the bed. John flinches away when he reaches his wooden arm out, and Merle draws back, but he doesn't go away.

"Well you _are_ here," he counters, "and I'm not gonna let you die on me again, so get used to being alive."

A horrible rasping sound comes from John's throat and Merle realizes he's _laughing_. "I haven't been alive since the first time we ate a planar system, Merle. You were right to name us the Hunger. We...it _ate_ itself. There was nothing, _nothing_ there, in that place you left us in and we were still so _hungry_. It ate itself and it devoured me along with it and I was _unmade_ , Merle, deader than dead."

"Clearly not," Merle says, "or you wouldn't be lying naked in my bed." He winces. Poor choice of words—but John doesn't even notice, he's so self-absorbed. Always has been, as long as Merle's known him.

"Forget the suit," John mutters. " _Everything_ is ruined."

"We saved the world," Merle disagrees. "Hell, more than just the world, our whole planar system and _every_ planar system—and you helped, John! You told me, _break the bonds_ , and we did, and at that beach—"

He stops. The beach. Had it been... _his_ beach, here in Bottlenose Cove? But...how?

"There is still hunger," John murmurs. "I'm still incomplete..."

"But you're alive again, which is more than you deserve, so be grateful for it." Merle wants to slap him on the back, startle him out of his self-pity, but he's half-afraid that would cause John to crumble into ash, and he doesn't want that. He doesn't want John to go. He'll have to think about why, but for now that knowledge is enough, and he knows he'll do what he can to keep John here.

"Drink your tea," he orders instead. "It's good for you. I'm a cleric, I know. Won't sate your hunger, but it'll quench your thirst, huh?"

John still doesn't look at him—but he does lift the mug of tea to his lips and take the tiniest sip, and a little bit of color returns to his deathly pale face.

That'll have to be enough, for now.

* * *

Merle sleeps on the couch for a week before he decides John has moped around long enough. He isn't gonna kick the poor guy out, especially not after...everything that had happened, but he's not putting up with being displaced in his own home.

"I can find you a place of your own, if you want to stick around here," he offers. "I'm an earl now—"

"Earl...Merle?" John interrupts, and his nose twitches a little. "Really?"

Merle huffs. "I'm a respectable old man! I got friends, associates, family—ah, geez, you haven't met my kids yet! They'll be back from their mom's place in a few days, I—" _I'd love to introduce you,_ he'd been about to say, but...would he? Merle wants the best for John, he really does, but when it comes to his _kids_...

He's trying to be a good dad, now, and somehow he doesn't think Hecuba would be thrilled to have the personification of existential depression around to influence Mavis and Mookie. Even if that's no longer part of John's job description, he's still...well. He's still got the marks of the Hunger on him. He's still...cold, in a way Merle can't quite figure out how to remedy.

"I...don't want to impose," John mutters. He gets up and wanders around Merle's room, pacing. He's wearing Merle's longest bathrobe, the one he trips on every time he wears it, but it still only barely covers his butt. Merle tries not to stare.

"Look, I don't wanna kick you out on the curb," Merle says. "This isn't your home plane, I don't know why you got spit out here instead of there, but you're my friend and I wanna help. But this is my house and I'm an old dwarf and the couch is hurting my back."

John stops in his pacing, staring into a mirror like he doesn't recognize the person looking back at him. Well, considering how long he'd been the Hunger, Merle doesn't really blame him.

"You still think of me as a friend?" he asks quietly.

Merle blinks. "Of course. You always were. It just took you awhile to realize that."

"I—" John chokes, and Merle rushes forward, concerned—he's _crying_ , some of that iciness melting away, and Merle doesn't know what to do about that so he hugs him, holds him close like he never got to do in their Parley parlor, tries to comfort him.

"Why..." John can't seem to find the words. "Merle, you..."

"Look, I'm not sleeping on the couch anymore," Merle informs him, looking up into his pale grey eyes. They'd glittered with a thousand colors amidst the blackness, once, just like the rest of him, but right now they're watery and fragile and _real_. It's the mundanity that gets him, how average John is now, and yet still so unique. "But if you wanna stick around, that's alright with me. I'm a small dwarf, it's a big bed—but my ex-wife'll tell ya I hog the blankets, so be warned."

John trembles in Merle's arms, and finally reciprocates the hug. "Okay," he whispers, and Merle smiles.

* * *

"I didn't think," John says haltingly, "that I'd see you again. Or anyone. But especially not you."

Merle pauses briefly as he wolfs down his meal, then hurriedly finishes chewing. He's about to respond, but he can't help a massive burp from exploding out of him first. He laughs half-heartedly, wipes his face, and looks back up at John.

There's something like disgust on his face. No, not disgust—fondness? It was hard to tell.

"Well, can't say I thought I'd see you again either." Merle shrugs. "But here you are."

"Why..." John grimaces, then blurts out: "Why are you doing this? Why are you being so kind to me? I don't deserve it."

Merle blinks. He thought he'd made that clear. "Of course you deserve it, John! I don't know why you're here, but you haven't hurt anyone yet, so I'm inclined to believe you've changed." His voice softens. "Look, everyone deserves a second chance. Or, I don't know, a fifty-third chance. Fifty-fourth if you count the time we beat you. Don't you want forgiveness?"

"I don't understand." John glares at him. "You're not—I want you to—it doesn't _matter_ what I want. I killed you, Merle, so many times I don't even remember the count, and I almost killed you for _good_."

"But you didn't," Merle points out. "Look, I may be too soft for my own good, but hey. I choose joy, remember? I choose to move on. Give it a try, old pal. You might like it."

John's eyes are full of heat, and something strange coils in Merle's chest, something he doesn't quite recognize.

"You're a fool," John hisses at last. "How do you know I won't kill you again? You don't have a way out this time."

Merle crosses his arms. "I don't think you will."

John looks away, and Merle knows he's right.

* * *

John doesn't leave, even after all that. He stays in Bottlenose Cove, in Merle's bed.

Sometimes Merle wakes up curled up against his chest, and it isn't until John wakes up too and flinches away that he realizes it was a little strange to do that.

He doesn't stop.

* * *

John is... _nervous_. He's markedly different from his time as the Hunger, in many ways, but Merle's never seen him so anxious about something, not even when begging him to break the bonds. But he keeps himself together when Mookie shoves a frog into his hands and demands John rate how slimy it is, and he even gives Mavis a half-hearted smile.

"Who _is_ this guy?" Mavis asks suspiciously, and Merle almost laughs. How does she not know, after the Story and Song? But then, everyone thought the Hunger was utterly defeated, and Merle's the only one who'd ever _seen_ John face-to-face.

"A friend," is all he says, tugging lightly on her pigtails.

She scowls. "If he's your _boy_ friend—"

Merle splutters out a denial and spends the next week camping on the beach with Mookie. When Hecuba comes to pick the kids back up she gives John a once-over, raises an eyebrow at Merle, and departs without a word. Mavis smirks at him and tugs on her mother's arm, pulling her down to whisper something in her ear.

"What was that about?" John asks, so innocently curious that Merle scarcely believes he's the same person who'd stared listlessly into a teacup and refused to eat or drink until Merle threatened to set his plants on him.

"Dunno," Merle dismisses. "You know. Kids."

"Right." John frowns slightly. "Merle?"

"Mm?" Merle says absently, reaching to scratch at a bug bite on his elbow.

"Are you...coming back to bed tonight?"

Merle flushes. "It's my bed."

"...good," John mumbles, so quiet Merle barely hears it. Barely—but he does, and raises and eyebrow.

"I sleep better when you're there," John admits, and Merle realizes suddenly that _oh._ Maybe Mavis was onto something. About John, at least, not him. The ice was starting to thaw.

* * *

Merle wakes up in the middle of the night with John's arm draped over his torso and a boner that earns him his place in the Tres Horny Boys. He slips out of bed and rushes to the greenhouse, trying desperately to think of curling tendrils, plush petals—and _not_ how broad John's chest was, or the way his eyes caught the glow of the Fantasy Nightlight in the kitchen when they bumped into each other grabbing a midnight snack, or the hesitant confession that he'd missed Merle when he'd been out camping.

He fails, miserably.

* * *

"It was _terrible,_ " John exclaims, eyes gleaming in a way they haven't since he'd washed up on Merle's beach, "just _awful_ execution—we didn't have this play back on my homeworld and _still_ I've seen a hundred variations on it, and the acting was terrible—they should be ashamed. They should give up. It's _pointless_. They should quit their jobs and—"

"John," Merle interrupts. At first he'd been glad to see John so excited about something, so riled up, so full of passion...but now his gut twists and he can barely stand to look at him.

"What?" John snaps. "Don't you agree? That soprano was going to shatter my eardrums, they—"

"Is this how it started?" Merle demands. "Back on your homeworld? Ranting about life's mediocrities until you got so fed up with everything you took them all over and turned into something incapable of satisfaction?"

John freezes. "I..." But he doesn't deny it, and the mad light in his eyes doesn't go away. Is it Merle's imagination, or are there flecks of black dancing around his irises?

"You're _not_ doing that again," Merle warns.

"You can't tell me what I can and can't do," John growls.

Merle huffs. "I can tell you to sleep on the couch."

John falls silent. "Merle..."

And Merle knows he's won.

* * *

"I don't want to be that way again," John says the next morning at breakfast. He'd taken his exile to the couch with more grace than Merle had expected, and now he's up early, cooking (burning) pancakes as some sort of reconciliation attempt.

He doesn't need to do that—Merle's already forgiven him—but he eats the charred food anyway, and gives John a thumbs up when he sees the anxiety in his tense shoulders.

"You won't be," Merle says through a mouthful of pancake. "Not with me around to knock some sense into ya."

"Are you going to be around, Merle?" John asks, too quiet for comfort.

Merle swallows. "Why wouldn't I be? It's my house."

"It's not mine." John shrugs.

"You've lived here for half a year, buddy," Merle says, reaching over to pat him on the shoulder. "I think you can call it home, if you want."

"Merle, I—" John looks like he's about to...what? Cry? Protest? Kiss him?

He doesn't do any of that: he _hugs_ Merle, initiating an embrace for the first time, and Merle hugs him back.

(Is it weird that he kind of wishes John _had_ kissed him?)

* * *

This has gone on for far too fucking long, Merle decides after a year's passed. So _what_ if it's crazy to forgive him, he'd done that the moment John showed back up in his life. Really, this was just...taking it a few steps further.

They've been sharing a bed the whole damn time, anyway.

So when Merle gets up early one morning to do earl stuff in the town square, he gives John a quick kiss on the cheek as he runs out the door.

"Have a good day," he says gruffly, and flees, leaving John staring after him, dumbstruck.

* * *

Okay, apparently that wasn't enough of a hint, because while John is extra nice to him the next few days, he doesn't _bring it up_ or try and reciprocate. Time for step two in "How To Seduce A Chaos Entity: House Husband Edition," by Merle Hitower Highchurch.

A candlelit bath was maybe not the _most_ subtle thing, but John clearly needs more than _subtlety_. Merle moans loudly as he settles into the hot water, very conscious that John is just on the other side of the door reading. He takes a large bite out of a carrot and smacks his lips loudly, thinking about all sorts of carnal things he can do with the vegetables he's brought out. Or with John, if his stupid friend-slash-roommate-slash-enemies-to-lovers-fanfic-in-the-making would _take a goddamn hint._

The bath doesn't work quite as well as he planned—but Merle _does_ take note of the flush from John's cheeks down to his shoulders when he saunters out of the bathroom nude but for some cucumbers on his eyes and a towel tied _far_ too loosely about his hips, and he feels John's heavy stare on him as he sorts through his pajamas, Kenny Chesney tattoo in full view when he "accidentally" lets the towel fall to the floor.

That night it's John who leaves the bed abruptly around two in the morning. Merle smirks at him over breakfast, and John pointedly doesn't meet his gaze.

* * *

Merle's patience runs out as the weather turns cold, and when he and John get snowed in he decides that by the time this is over they won't need a fire to keep themselves warm. He curls up even closer to John than usual under the pretense of the temperature, and doesn't bother to hide his morning wood.

"Merle," John says, _finally_ , when he's about to give up hope, "are you—" He can't bring himself to say it. Pan's furry forearms, it's like he's discovering the concept of romance for the first time.

"Am I what?" Merle demands, crossing his arms.

"Are you... _flirting_...with me?"

Merle groans, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"I'm sorry," John backtracks quickly, and _that's_ definitely not something he'd have said a year and a half ago, "I shouldn't have—"

"You _idiot_ ," Merle grumbles, grabbing his arm before he can go and pulling him down so close their noses touched. "It _took_ you long enough."

"I— _oh._ " About twelve different emotions flash across his face, before he smiles in a way that's _far_ too self-assured for Merle's comfort. "Well. I wanted to be _sure_."

"Don't you dare try and pass this off as part of some 'grand scheme,'" Merle warns—but he doesn't get much further, because John is kissing him, _finally_ , and Merle's got what he wanted at last.

* * *

It doesn't stay cold for long, Bottlenose Cove. Soon enough Merle's back out on the surf, wandering barefoot and stepping on shells, playing with his kids when they're in town and making a fool of himself for the benefit of the people he supposedly is there to leave. Snowmelt makes the sea air smell just a little sweeter, for a day or two. Soon enough all signs of the winter storm are gone, though gray skies still reign as the season stretches on and Candlenights starts to loom on the horizon.

And if the way Merle smiles at John is a little sweeter, too, well. He rather thinks it's apt, and he sure hopes the feeling sticks around a little longer than the snow.

**Author's Note:**

> re: "a fifty-third chance": Merle died 57 times in Stolen Century but at least one of those was from the Judges and I think it’s likely he beefed it a few time outside of John too, so I that guessed John killed him 52 times.
> 
> Thanks for reading, and please comment if you enjoyed!  
> You can find me on tumblr [@arofili](http://arofili.tumblr.com/).


End file.
